Posts filed under 'Features'

Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Yaho0! and Twitter team up; advertising is good; ad groups 101; Yahoo’s head of search on the Microsoft alliance, and more

Yahoo! gets all Twitterpated
Last night we announced a new partnership with Twitter that integrates Twitter’s real-time social experiences with Yahoo’s global network of more than 600 million users. Together with the recently announced Facebook integration, this relationship is a key part of advancing our social strategy, transforming Yahoo! into a highly customizable social experience that lets people unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web. Good for users. Great for advertisers. For more details, head on over to Yodel Anecdotal.

Affiliates beware: Cali sales tax looming
Many search and display advertiser run affiliate networks, whereby they become the middle-men between consumers and suppliers. It’s a good business and one that provides an essential service. But the State of California is considering imposing a sales tax on affiliate sites that have suppliers in the state. While aimed at the big boys like Amazon.com and Overstock.com, the law could affect any affiliate site with relationships in the Golden State. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Said explains.

Online ads help shoppers save
Advertising is often taken to the pillory for being self-serving. That’s just not fair. Good advertising serves an essential need in society. Without it, how would you know that there’s a better—or cheaper—mousetrap out there? eMarketer explains how online advertising is helping consumers save cash in tough times.

Once more, with feeling
In an intriguing piece in the libertarian journal Reason, Greg Beato cites the film “Art & Copy” and the cable TV hit “Mad Men,” to show that, contrary to popular opinion, advertising—like documentary film—can be a medium for truth-telling. Advertising, says Beato, works best when consumers feel that you are telling the truth about your product or service. We agree, truth be told.

ClickEquation’s ad groups 101
We’ve chatted about ad groups before. But don’t take it entirely from us. ClickEquation’s Craig Danuloff explores how ad groups work and how they can benefit your PPC campaigns. Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

AdAge’s digital marketing guide to social Media
AdAge’s David Berkowitz offers up 16 answers to questions that people are asking now about marketing via social media—16 really good answers.

Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance coverage
By now you’ve no doubt heard about the Yahoo! and Microsoft search alliance. It’s kind of a big deal. So big, in fact, that this blog saw a 100-percent increase in traffic, there were 246 pieces of original news coverage, 283 broadcast clips and some 5,000 tweets—all in the first two days after the announcement. Here’s a synopsis of some of the most interesting news and analysis.

• Fox News
• The Beeb (BBC)
• MarketWatch
• Search Engine Land
• Marketing Pilgrim
• Search Engine Journal
• The London Telegraph on EU approval
• And, just for fun: The New York Times Yahoo! history timeline

A chat with Shashi Seth, our new SVP of Yahoo! Search Products
It’s been a busy month since Shashi Seth joined Yahoo! as our new Senior Vice President of Yahoo! Search Products. In this video, Seth talks about his first month at Yahoo! and clarifies what he sees as some of the most important aspects of the agreement with Microsoft. View the video below, or visit the Yahoo! Search blog for more detail.

— Michael Mattis

Speaking of Search

Yahoo! media event spotlights search innovation

Because we’re constantly working to make the search experience more relevant, we also want the world to understand what we’re up to in the search business. That’s why today we hosted a media event, SearchSpeak 2010, to help the media know what’s going on.

The event, at our Sunnyvale, Calif. headquarters, featured our new senior VP of search products, Shashi Seth, David Pann, VP of search advertising, and a slew of other executives. Shashi told the audience about consumer search innovations, and talked about the importance of search to Yahoo!, even in light of our potential partnership with Microsoft. “Yahoo has been in search, is in search, and will continue to be in the future,” Shashi said. “We’ll continue to drive innovation. It’s our stake in the ground.”

David talked about our latest innovations in paid search, including our network distribution feature and the Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop. “We’re focused on three key areas for advertising,” David said: “Better value, transparency and control, and innovation.”

Here’s an example of what the press is saying about Yahoo! search after today’s event:

All Things Digital: “[They debuted] a new mobile search app that uses a kind of Etch-a-Sketch type drawing technology–using fingers and not keywords–to help users find stuff.”

USA Today: “Yahoo executives are spending most of this morning outlining the company’s ambitious search plans.”

Dow Jones Newswires: “A senior Yahoo Inc. executive said Wednesday that the Web giant hasn’t exited the Internet search market, despite the company’s decision to strike a search pact last year with Microsoft Corp.”

TechCrunch: “Yahoo has been in search, is in search, and will continue to be in the future.”

Mashable: “The point seems to be: ‘We’re a pretty damn good search engine, you can’t ignore us!’ And in many respects, they’re right.”

—The Team

Ad News and Views from Around the Web

New Yahoo! Mobile blog; making the Internet safer; digital marketing trends for 2010, and more

Yahoo! Mobile blog launches
If you read Paul Cushman’s excellent entry “Demystifying Mobile, Part I” on the Yahoo! Advertising blog yesterday, you’re probably interested in mobile marketing. Well now there’s a new Yahoo! blog just for you. The Yahoo! Mobile blog will cover all aspects of mobile marketing, including case studies, new Yahoo! mobile features and products, and industry trends. Check out the La Quinta case study and see how you, too can up your mobile marketing ROI.

Safer Internet day
Safety first, right? On February 9, people and organizations around the world—including Yahoo!—took a moment to recognize the importance of safety on the Web. Visit Yodel Anecdotal to learn more.

Digital marketing 2010 trend round-up
CMO.com’s hard working editors have put together a page of trend pieces on digital marketing for the coming year. Based on the Society of Digital Agencies’ recent report, “SoDA 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook,” CMO.com editors asked some of advertising’s heavy hitters to respond. You’ll find both the report and the responses illuminating. Not to be outdone, iMedia Connection’s Michael Sprouse offers his own round-up.

Creative spotlight: Super Bowl ads redux
It’s not only the biggest sports day of the year, it’s also the biggest day for ad agency creatives, the day when advertisers spend up to $3 million for 30 seconds of air time. There have been some real classics in the past. This year? Maybe not so much. But there has been controversy—you know what we’re talking about—and that is always interesting. The kids over at the free TV/film site, hulu.com, have been kind enough to put together a special page where you can review all of the ads from Sunday’s big game. Want to see the ads that didn’t make the cut? Check out Spike’s rejected ads page. Who really won the battle of the brands on Super Sunday? You can score it by the tweets.

— Michael Mattis

Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Selling the Super Bowl; digital ad budgets to increase; keeping it simple; promote your blog

Selling the Super Bowl
This Sunday is arguably the biggest sporting event of the year, Super Bowl XLIV. Advertisers, according to AdWeek, have shelled out nearly $3 million each for 30-second spots during the big game. “The game is the only significant TV showcase for commercials left in today’s media-fractured environment, and advertisers are frantically putting the final touches on their plays for the day,” writes Eleftheria Parpi. How are they are building buzz around their creative? Hint: the initials are S.M., and we don’t mean the naughty kind.

We’ve got good news and bad news
Remember those old good news/bad news jokes? (Like, the good news: the captain aboard a Viking ship doubles rations for the guys on the oars. The bad news: he wants to go water skiing.) Well, the good news for digital marketers is that two-thirds of marketing execs in a recent CMO.com/Society of Digital Agencies survey say they’ll up their digital budgets in the face of current economic conditions. The bad news? Those conditions still suck.

Keeping it simple
Savvy marketers know that people are suspicious of complexity—and they know that the way to get people to engage is to keep the message simple and straightforward. The Boston Globe’s Drake Bennett shows how “cognitive fluency” can help you to get into people’s psyches because, in people’s minds, “easy = true.”

Tips for promoting corporate blogs
Last week, we took note of a recent TopRank survey that showed how blogging can enhance SEO. This week, TopRank blogger Thomas McMahon follows up by offering several useful tips for promoting your blog and keeping it alive. All common sense, but sometimes we all need to be reminded just what common sense is.

—Michael Mattis

Don’t Set it and Forget it

Four simple steps to help your campaign keep up with new searches

I can’t possibly be the only person that remembers the line “just set it and forget it”.  Those were the good ol’ days—the same days as when you could just set up a search marketing campaign and leave it alone. 

Not anymore. Users are more sophisticated in their searches now, and we’ve seen that up to 20% of searches in any given month can be search queries never seen before by a search engine.  This means if you leave your campaign untouched, you could be missing 20% more traffic.

So what’s the best way to keep up to speed with the changing search tide while maintaining your sanity?  Here are our four simple steps that will help your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign keep pace.

If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you can use our new Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop tool.  It allows you to easily execute bulk changes and optimizations within an intuitive desktop interface, spending less time on the tactical details of campaign management while maximizing your returns.  And if you happen to have your campaigns managed by SEM Agencies, you can check with them to see if they are doing all these things to give you the best performance.

1.  First off, let’s set up the campaign properly
Start off making sure your campaign is opted into Advanced Match (this is the default setting).  Advanced Match campaign will display ads for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions, or web content than you may have thought of yourself. This includes concepts that are related to your keyword, but that do not necessarily contain your keyword.  Think of Advanced Match as the sales guy that’s going above and beyond to bring in great leads where you least expected them. 

Which keywords should you start with first?  Well, if you have a big budget and want to focus on driving traffic, then you may want more high-volume search terms (e.g. car) in your campaign. If your objective is getting higher conversions, you may want to include more tail terms as they are more product specific (e.g., new 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car).  Make sure to use excluded words (or negative keywords) to avoid matching to terms that are not relevant to your product or service. 

2.  Monitor your campaign regularly
Because search habits constantly change, you should tune your campaigns as regularly as possible.  The frequency really depends on you and what your objectives are, and if you’re meeting those goals or not. 

The best way to determine your campaign’s performance is through the myriad of reports available through our reporting tools.  It’s kind of like when you check traffic in the evening to determine the best route to take home.  You may choose to take the shortest route but sit in a little bit of traffic (or a lot if you’re on highway 101).  Or you may choose a route that is longer but less traveled, and gets you home 15 minutes earlier.  The same logic applies to your campaign.  Know your objective, and look at the reports to help you get there.

Once you have some insight about which campaigns and keywords are performing, here are some things you can try:

• Work with your account manager to identify additional keywords and bid opportunities.
• Take advantage of our keyword suggestion tools & discovery tools to supplement your existing keywords.
• Use organic search results to optimize campaigns and expand your keywords or add excluded words to avoid future matches.

3.  Tune your campaign
By now you have a pretty good idea which keywords are doing well in your campaigns, and which ones are lagging.  It’s time to take action.  Separate lower performing keywords from higher performing keywords so your high performers aren’t dragged down by your low performers.  Create a “low budget” campaign that includes all of your low performing keywords, and use lower bids so that you continue to participate in the marketplace. 

Another tuning technique is to separate keywords that get a lot of clicks from low-volume keywords.  This allows you to tweak your ad copy for the greatest impact on the high-volume terms.  Mixing the two may dilute your campaigns overall performance, and make it difficult for you to determine which keyword is negatively affecting your campaign’s Quality Index.

 4.  Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor…but don’t get too comfortable
Now that you’ve tuned your campaigns, give it some time to see how each campaign performs, but don’t let it simmer for too long.  The duration really depends on how much traffic you’re getting.  You may notice changes taking effect immediately, or you may have to wait a few days or weeks to see the full impact.    

At the end of the day, where does this cycle of keyword addition, monitoring, separating, tuning, re-running your campaign take you?  It allows you to improve your ad quality and your campaign performance.  The better a campaign’s performance, the less it’ll cost you to participate.  And who wouldn’t want a few extra dollars back in their pockets?

Besides, if you’re not managing your campaign regularly, you can bet your competitor is—and possibly taking traffic away from you.  To protect your traffic and your business, we encourage you to actively manage your campaign. Don’t just set and forget it!

—Payam Tehrani, product manager, Sponsored Search ad selection

 Author’s note: I welcome your feedback on this blog, and highly encourage you to share your experiences and offer your best practices in managing your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.

Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Quantifiable creative; blogging enhances SEO; search surges; kids more plugged in than ever; celebrating Guy Day, and more

Three simple steps to better creative
Let’s face it, a lot of agency creatives like to blather on about “inspiration” and the “creative process.” But, says iMedia Connection blogger, Robert Boman, (who is also Javelin’s Interactive Creative Director), “Marketing is a profession, not an art show. Your work’s got to be far more than just eye candy. It needs to be smart. It needs to be trackable.” He offers a handy, three-step process for creating measurable marketing.

Survey says: Blogging enhances SEO
Writing on TopRank’s Online Marketing blog, Lee Odden reveals the results of a TopRank survey that asked 326 marketing pros if they thought blogging had a positive effect on their SEO. Most did. In fact, more than 87 percent of respondents said blogging had “successfully increased measurable SEO objectives.” A common reason why some companies don’t blog or quit blogging? Resources.

Search usage jumps 50% in one year
According a new PC World report, Web search jumped a full 50% from 2008 to 2009. In fact, last year there were more than four billion searches each day. “We knew this was going to happen,” says Tribble Ad Agency blogger TheFounder, “and it’s going to get bigger and bigger for quite some time. Search has become the definition of marketing and advertising.” All true, but you heard it here first.

The 10 habits of highly effective CMOs
You’ve probably heard of the perennial self-help bestseller, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” But what’s it take to be a top Chief Marketing Officer? Jim Stengel, the highly effective former global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, offers 10 tips, for free.

Kids: Plugged in or couch potatoes?
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that kids aged 8 to 18 are more plugged in now than ever, spending 7 ½ hours a day, or nearly 53 hours per week, with electronic media. How does that daily usage break down by media and minutes?

• TV: 270
• Music: 151
• Video games: 73
• Mobile phone chat: 33
• Texting: 90
• Computing (non school): 89

Creative Spotlight: Bye, Guy
Today’s Creative Spotlight is not about a piece of creative. It’s about a creative. Legendary ad man and Chiat/Day co-founder, Guy Day, who brought us such compelling creative as Apple’s infamous “1984″ Super Bowl spot, has died. He was nearly 80 years old. Hats off to one of advertising’s greats.

Here’s a clip of the original “1984″ ad. For those old enough to remember, it was just about the darndest ad anyone had ever seen on TV up to that point. Enjoy. And thanks, Guy.

(Logic-Creative image by RabiD Son, via Flickr, CC 2.0)

—Michael Mattis

You’re in Control

Network distribution and import campaigns features give greater control over your campaigns

We resolved to deliver to our Sponsored Search advertisers two great new features in the new year: network distribution control and an import campaigns tool. These items may have been on your wish list for a long time, and as of today, the wait is over. Here are the details:

Network Distribution
This new feature enables you to set up campaigns or ad groups targeting Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Partners, or both.

If you select Yahoo! Search, your ads will appear only on Yahoo! search results pages. If you select Yahoo! Partners, your ads will appear across our partners’ pages, including WebMD, Buy.com, CNBC and CitySearch.

With the network distribution feature, you can choose for your ads to appear only on Yahoo! search results pages, only on Yahoo! partner implementations, or across the entire network. Even if you choose to target a campaign or an ad group to the Entire Network (i.e., both Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Partners), you have the ability to fine-tune your bids with different bids for Yahoo! Partners.

If you’re familiar with our system of pricing discounts, you know that your clicks are automatically priced according to our assessment of the performance of traffic coming from various sources within our distribution network.

While your campaign objectives will determine the best use of network distribution, we recommend that advertisers target the Entire Network to maximize traffic volume, while retaining the ability to bid up or down on Yahoo! Partners. For more control and optimization capability, you may wish to duplicate key campaigns, with one targeting Yahoo! Search and the other targeting Yahoo! Partners.

The following tools can help you get the most out of this new feature:

• Network Distribution Performance Report – Enables you to view reporting by traffic source at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.
• Ad Delivery Report – Provides insight into where your ads are showing on our various partners’ sites, and domain-level performance.
• Blocked Domains – Block up to 500 domains that aren’t working for you.
• Conversion-only Analytics – Allows you to track conversion events by domain, and record revenue that might be associated with a transaction.

Import Campaigns
This new tool is designed to help you easily and efficiently convert your campaign data from Google AdWords into Yahoo! Search Marketing formats. Simply download your third-party file, then import it from your computer into the Sponsored Search interface. You can import your file by selecting the “Import Campaigns” button, which is located on the Dashboard and the Campaigns tabs, or by selecting the Import tab.

Once the import is complete, you’ll be able to view any errors and pause the campaigns for review. Learn more about converting and importing your third-party campaign data.

Free Webinar
To get more details on the network distribution and import campaigns features, sign up for our webinar, scheduled for Thursday, February 4 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

— Jeff Hecox

Where the Green Things Are

The who, what, where and how of green targeting

There’s no doubt that “going green” has reached far beyond a trend to become a lifestyle standard on Main Street. People are now demanding the supply of not just environmentally friendly products, but companies who walk their talk.

Whether you are new to the idea of green products and business practices, have already begun to promote your green offerings, or have been green all along, you still may be wondering how to target the new growing green market and this very particular new consumer.

Who are all these green people?
According to a Yahoo! survey of 1,500 consumers in August 2008, about 77 percent considered themselves “green.” That’s a huge market and growing. But it’s also important to understand the different shades of green, in terms of dedication and determination to seek information on green products. This will help you write ad copy to speak to your prime prospect:

• Deeply Committed—Early adopters of green who are looking to make a long-term impact on the planet, dominated by adults ages 35 and over. This group will go out of their way to make green purchases.
• Trendy—Think green is hip and want to be green to look good; adults ages 18-34 who display a strong desire to purchase green brands because of social pressure.
• Practical—Family-focused green adopters, adults ages 30-50, many with three or more children, concerned with buying healthy green products for their children’s welfare and to save money.
• Passive —Consider green important, but leave buying green products to others. Mostly women who are less likely to make a change to a green lifestyle today, but may consider purchasing a green product in the future.
• Non-Green—No interest in making changes to be green.

What do greenies want?
In a sense, green consumers are seeking a new level of transparency in what they buy. They don’t just want a green product, they want it to come from a sustainable source and company that is practicing responsible business production. Just selling a couple of green products does not make you a green brand; in fact, it may be considered “green washing” and green consumers may stay away rather than buy. Your business needs to be functioning in a green way to be considered a creditable green brand.

If you’re not already incorporating sustainability into your business, you may need to start by examining the carbon footprint behind your product. For example, at the recent Opportunity Green Conference in Los Angeles, Beth Springer, Executive VP of International and Natural Personal Care at Clorox Corporation, spoke about how it has made green changes. Clorox embraced changing standards and saw it as an opportunity, taking an inventory of their carbon footprint in every aspect of their business: electricity, water recycling, waste reduction, and distribution.

It also “greened” existing products by making them more eco-friendly (such as concentrated laundry detergents), acquired brands that were already green (Burt’s Bees) and started a new line of eco-friendly cleaning products (Green Works.) The result not only opened up a huge new targeting market for green consumers, but was also an enormous opportunity to launch an advertising campaign to show off the new, greener version of Clorox.

How do we tell them we’re green?
Because consumers are turning to the web to find product information, ingredients and company business practices, this is a prime outlet to advertise what you are doing. At the Opportunity Green conference, Annie Leonard, writer and producer of the viral film “The Story of Stuff,” explained some key points to marketing your story, which you may want to consider when developing your strategy:

•  Clarify your goals
• Get out of your head and into your heart to communicate your message
• Simplify your message so it’s digestible, but don’t dumb it down
• Make your story about emotions, not facts
• And preach to your choir, i.e., the greenies. They are your foot soldiers in spreading the word about your brand. In this age of grassroots social media, word-of-mouth is essential. Studies have shown that people are more likely to trust what a friend recommends over mainstream marketing efforts.

Where in the web is green?
Craft your ads to reflect the greenness that you’re trying to promote. Keywords will not only place your ads on green web pages, but also catch the eye of your target consumer, so choose your words wisely. Use keywords that describe your products, such as: environmentally friendly, organic, natural, reusable, fuel-efficient, energy-star rated and biodegradable; and words that describe your business practices: socially responsible, sustainable and of course, green!

If you want a competitive advantage in a market becoming flooded with green goods, look for what makes yours special and different. It might be the price: The green consumer might go out of her way to buy a green product, but she’ll also take a step toward what will save her money and the planet at the same time.

— Kastle Waserman, Communications Manager, Yahoo! Search Marketing

(Bird image by Michael Wooderuff;  Recycled cups image by e-magic via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Share Your Memories of 2009

Tweet your fave raves for the past year with Yahoo!

By all accounts, 2009 was pretty rough year: economic meltdowns, persistent war, piracy on the high seas, fires and floods. You name it, we endured it.

But not all the news was bad. This year saw a new world land speed record for a steam-powered car; America’s first commercial Zeppelin—yeah, you heard that right:  Zeppelin—service took off into the wild blue yonder over the San Francisco Bay Area; NASA enjoyed a flawless Space Shuttle record and discovered water on the moon; the Large Hadron Collider set a world record in accelerating protons to near light speed and, here at Yahoo!, we announced a dazzling new brand relaunch that promises to be a boon for both our users and advertisers.
 
Yahoo!’s been crunching the Year in Review numbers since 2001. What we discovered in 2009 is that people all over are coping—and escaping, dealing with the big-footprint issues of the day while seeking comfort in what was good.

This year, you can share your own experience in 140 characters or fewer by Tweeting it on Yahoo’s 2009 Year in Review site, or view the 2009 Rewind video.

For more details, visit Yodel Anecdotal.

—The Team

Ad News and View from Around the Web

Yahoo! front page success; improving your search performanceYahoo! (still) hearts creatives; holiday sales success, and more

Time spent on Yahoo! front page up 20 percent since redesign
Eric Schonfeld over at TechCrunch reports from Yahoo! Analyst Day on the success of our new front page. Writes Schonfeld: “Senior vice president Tapan Bhat gave an overview of how the redesigned homepage is performing. In the past three months, pageviews are up 9 percent, and time spent on the homepage is up 20 percent…  Some of the big drivers of user engagement come from the ability to customize the homepage by adding applications and feeds from anywhere on the Web into the My Favorites column on the left-hand side. According to Yahoo consumer surveys, 75 percent of users love the applications area and 40 percent are using between 6 to 11 apps. Usage of that feature is up 8 percent over the past three months.” Not bad, if you did say so ourselves.

Improving your search performance
Thinking ahead to 2010, Search Engine Land’s Michelle Stern says that you, the B2B marketer, can improve your search results next year by following three relatively simple rules.

“Yahoo! Hearts Creatives” video a hit
We do indeed speak your language, agency creatives. A few weeks ago we unleashed the Yahoo! Hearts Creatives video—originally created as an in-house marketing vehicle—on the general agency public. Since then, it’s gotten rave reviews and is appearing embedded on sites all over. Check out some of the comments, and feel free to leave one of your own. Meanwhile, a Leo Burnett exec asks, “is strategy the new creative?.”

Holiday sales success secrets
Sometimes, you don’t realize the truth of an obvious bit of advice until it’s put in front of you—you know, one of those “I should have thought of that” moments. Last week we posted five tips and tricks for making your holiday season successful in a tough economy based on Yahoo! research. Nothing groundbreaking here, just common sense you don’t realize is common until someone mentions it.

Tips for using Yahoo! Site Explorer
ClickZ’s Erik Dafforn, offers several tips on Yahoo! Site Explorer, a comprehensive set of tools that help you, for starters, explore all the Web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. You might want to put your propeller beanie on for this one. To explore Explorer, explore here.

Five ways to optimize your Facebook marketing
While everyone’s whining about the new Facebook look and feel, marketers should take a second to look at Daniel Flamberg’s post over at iMedia Connection. For marketers, says Flamberg, “Facebook isn’t a cakewalk.” He then offers five solid tips on how to make the best of it.

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